


paradox / rose

by viscrael



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Prose Poem, personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 19:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5838361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>My sister was—</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	paradox / rose

**Author's Note:**

> super personal thing i wrote a few months ago. uploading it here for my own later reference

My sister was a walking paradox.

She spoke too much and never said anything. She

walked straight drunk and recited her ABC’s

backwards. She laughed and flicked on the TV just

as the screen went black. She inhaled ash in her lungs

and took the deepest breaths I’ve ever seen. She was

every oxymoron, every contradiction, everything

wrong and everything right.

 

My sister was a rose with too many thorns.

She was beautiful, blonde and blue-eyed, five two,

five three on a good day. She loved writing and kept

a journal for her boyfriend when he was in jail. She

was in her school’s marching band as a thirteen-year-

old. She spread a blanket on our living room floor and

pretended to be having a picnic because it was raining

outside. She was soft and rough at the same time. She

was every good memory and every bad memory.

 

My sister was a star that burnt out too quickly.

 

My sister was a train wreck.

 

My sister was ash.

 

My sister was

 

My sister was—

 

 

 

 

 

My sister was a drug addict.

And there is no metaphor behind this; there is no

follow up sentence explain what the “drugs” represented.

The drugs were drugs. They didn’t represent anything.

 

Should one have to explain the analogy behind heroin?

 

My sister was a drug addict, and that is the truth.

My sister was my tormenter for many years, not because

she was trying to hurt me, but out of virtue of being an

addict. My sister stole my money. My sister made

my mother cry. My sister threatened to stab her husband

while I watched. My sister was this, my sister was that.

My sister, my sister, my sister.

 

There’s no use in hiding the truth behind pretty words,

and I get no solace from painting roses all day in hopes

it will bring her back. There is no metaphor in saying

that I see her sometimes, and there is no analogy in

telling you, the audience, that she’s dead.

 

When someone passes away, it takes the use out of metaphors.

 

When someone dies, it takes the use out of euphemisms.

 

(Because I did not get a euphemism when she overdosed,

when she tried to kill herself the December I turned twelve,

when her daughter cried because she would never see her

mother again, when _I_ cried because they would never build

a home.

I wasn’t granted the privilege of soft words and

sugar-coated information when I woke some nights

to hear the sounds of crying, _Mom, Mom_ , and then

an ambulance; I had no such freedom when she was

thrown in jail for a year, when she came home and

cried because her husband had beaten her again, when

I was rushed home one Thursday night to the news that

_your sister might be dying_.)


End file.
